Saturday Morning Links of Astonishment

by | Jul 18, 2020 | Daily Links | 320 comments

“Has everybody lost their fucking minds?” The single most commonly uttered sentence by SP every night here. And unfortunately, I will not be able to change her mind.

Birthdays are fun though, because they include a guy who was truly transformational; a guy who was a poster child for the Second Amendment; a very strong argument for immigration; proof that gingers don’t actually have souls; the author of one of my most worn-out textbooks when I was in college; an argument for term limits; a guy who truly was paradigmatic; a guy who one-upped Woodward; and one of my favorite string-pluckers.

Now for the fucking craziness.

 

Someone who was once a great man, then succumbed to craziness, has now succumbed period.

 

This is crazy-ass black helicopter shit. And in related news, here’s a lovely example of the bizarrely unconstitutional 100 mile rule.

 

Speaking of crazy… wait, this is normal for Illinois.

 

Our crazy local cops do what they do.

 

I’m a pervert but this is truly sick shit. Crazy-Evil.

 

Believe the scientists! Just not these scientists, right?

 

Old Guy Music is a song that I’ve had before in various versions. I would nominate this one as perhaps the best.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

320 Comments

  1. UnCivilServant

    Has everybody lost their fucking minds?

    Yes. Can you help me find mine?

      • Festus' Mustache

        Love that tune!

      • Festus' Mustache

        Love that tune!

      • Chafed

        Doubly so.

  2. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Good morning everyone.

    And with that I’m off to mow the grass before it becomes a steam bath out there.

    • UnCivilServant

      Today’s supposed to be hot, but tomorrow’s predicted to break 100 around here. (Keep in mind there’s no such thing as low humidity when it’s hot around here)

    • Old Man With Candy

      It’s 0508, sun is not yet up, and already over 90.

      • UnCivilServant

        Is it ever not over 90 in your neck of the woods?

      • Old Man With Candy

        December. And there’s no woods.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Bullshit, October, and we have Forests!

    • Gender Traitor

      It’s 8:20 a.m., and someone at the property diagonally behind our house is already out with the power tools disturbing my Saturday morning Zen. I’ve also already seen a mosquito, so I had to light up a couple of lemongrass & citronella candles and retrieve the bug zapper racquet.

      • Gender Traitor

        Worst of all, these candles are running low, and I might have trouble getting any more (that aren’t just straight, stinky citronella) this year because the neighborhood farmers’ market was cancelled for the season. ::whimpers::

      • UnCivilServant

        🙁

        I have walls keeping out the mosquitos, but I realized I didn’t properly foreshadow an important point. So now my brain is going in circles trying to decide if I can just move forward, or if I have to go back and weave it in.

      • Gender Traitor

        Proposition: Foreshadowing is the literary equivalent of foreplay. Discuss.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Don’t whimper, REBEL! Just bust into that cute little boutique store and take away whatever the Man has kept from you! It’s only fair…

      • Gender Traitor

        Thanks, but…Yikes! I’ll just walk to Tasha’s house if I get desperate.

      • Nephilium

        In case it isn’t obvious, I’m not one who buys candles. I suppose you could always make your own with some essential oils and wax.

      • TARDIS

        Yep, almost as much as people.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Lemongrass is good. It turns cow farts benign.

      • hayeksplosives

        The only thing worse than power tools in the neighborhood on Saturday is power tools in the neighborhood on Sunday. I was raised to respect the Sabbath by not junking it up for others with power tools.

        Of course, that was in the Bible Belt so it applied to Sunday not (((Saturday))).

        I guess I’m an ancient cultural relic but I still won’t mow or run other noisy equipment on Sunday.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        *ashamedly hides face after pushing mowing to pre-church tomorrow so that I could do other sweaty things this morning*

      • I'm Here To Help

        I have to admit, I was out at 07:30 with the weed eater trying to get it done before the sun made too much of an appearance. In my defense, the closest house is over 100 yards away, and the occupant of that house is stone deaf. Next closest living creatures of adequate size are the herd of cows about a quarter mile away…

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        9am – 8pm is the outdoor power tool “polite hours” for those of us packed into subdivisions like sardines.

        I was taking a walk a few days back and a lawn crew was out at 7am mowing and blowing. I get that it gets hot early, but 7am? Really?

      • CPRM

        I can’t even see my neighbors’ houses but I think it’s an asshat move to mow the lawn before 8am. But I’m not a guy to say there aughta be a law.

      • TARDIS

        That’s just being a bad neighbor. I don’t care how hot it is. No power tools before 9AM on Sat. If I had to mow on a Sunday, I would at least wait until noon.

      • CPRM

        Noon? It takes 3hrs to mow my lawn. Noon is a bit late.

      • TARDIS

        3 hours? Sorry, shitlord. I didn’t know you lived on a plantation. Maybe a larger mower is the ticket? My mowers broke, and I replaced them with Mexicans.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I was too late.

      • Gender Traitor

        ::pours Scruffy an iced coffee::

  3. Chipping Pioneer

    a guy who was truly transformational

    I was expecting Laplace. Triggered.

    * rocks back and forth in corner

    • Ted S.

      Oddly enough, that was my first thought too.

      • Old Man With Candy

        I use Laplace almost never. Fourier many times a day. This is the difference between scientists and engineers.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Well, engineers that aren’t RF and microwave specialists.

      • Spartacus

        I was thinking Fourier as well. But honestly, there are so many “named” transformations these days there there are many possibilities.

  4. The Late P Brooks

    The guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for face coverings initially did not have any citations for studies of cloth material efficiency or fit, but some references have been added since the guidelines were first posted. We reviewed these and found that many employ very crude, non-standardized methods (Anfinrud 2020, Davies 2013, Konda 2020, Aydin 2020, Ma 2020) or are not relevant to cloth face coverings because they evaluate respirators or surgical masks (Leung 2020, Johnson 2009, Green 2012).The guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for face coverings initially did not have any citations for studies of cloth material efficiency or fit, but some references have been added since the guidelines were first posted. We reviewed these and found that many employ very crude, non-standardized methods (Anfinrud 2020, Davies 2013, Konda 2020, Aydin 2020, Ma 2020) or are not relevant to cloth face coverings because they evaluate respirators or surgical masks (Leung 2020, Johnson 2009, Green 2012).

    No shit, Shirley. See my link from yesterday. What a joke.

    • Old Man With Candy

      I have my Glibs talismask (a great portmanteau from JW) to get into the grocery and home supplies stores today.

    • westernsloper

      What link yesterday? Morning links?

    • Chafed

      Kudos to the authors for having the balls to say it and stick by it.

  5. The Late P Brooks

    “Well, it COULD work, so we had better force everybody to do it.”

    EVERYTHING NOT PROHIBITED IS MANDATORY

  6. The Late P Brooks

    Today’s supposed to be hot, but tomorrow’s predicted to break 100 around here.

    100 degrees, in Albany?

    OMG TEH END TIMES.

    • UnCivilServant

      Pray to a merciful Gaia and repent for your sins!

  7. The Hyperbole

    Nice old guy music, I don’t think I have heard that particular rendition before, too bad the bassist forgot the lyrics half way through.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Me neither. Sweet!

      • Festus' Mustache

        I think he was trying to say “Sell yo Daughters!” but I might be mistaken.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Navajo blanket.

      • Cy

        Is that like a Cleveland Steamer?

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Though CBP frequently uses drones to conduct border surveillance, the Minneapolis incident appeared to be the first time that they had done so in response to domestic protests. Budd believes the DHS has undergone a “mission creep” phenomenon, wherein its mission and authorities have gradually expanded over time—a process carried out cumulatively over the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

    “‘Mission creep’ is what CBP, Border Patrol, and ICE have been engaged in since 9/11,” Budd said. “There are all sorts of interesting powers that CBP, ICE and Border Patrol have under Title 42 pandemic law, which has been triggered with Trump’s Covid-19 national emergency declaration. Even though he claims we should not be in pandemic lockdown, he refuses to lift the emergency declaration because this gives these agencies more authority. All of this is legal because of vague and broad authorities given to these agencies after 9/11.”

    Say whaaaa? Why, you could knock me over with a feather.

    • Ted S.

      he refuses to lift the emergency declaration because this gives these agencies more authority

      Now do this with the governors.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      And Reagan, and Bush Sr, and Clinton…

      • Viking1865

        Trump needs to fire a missile at a leftist making videos critical of him, so he can be as Presidential as Obama.

      • DrOtto

        Name one time Obama did anything bad to journalists. You can’t, because it was a pattern with him and it would be impossible to name just one time.

      • Viking1865

        Can you imagine what Janet Reno would have done if mobs of rightwingers spent weeks vandalizing federal buildings?

  9. The Late P Brooks

    I kinda thought John Lewis died weeks ago.

    • TARDIS

      Well he may have been brain dead for awhile. Even so, he’s still 50% smarter than Johnson.

    • Ted S.

      Look at this quaint guy who thinks 80s is hot weather.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Jacket time around heya

    • Spartacus

      As to the silent spreaders trope, here is how the very head of WHO’s COVID-19 Task Force, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, recently explained that transmission of the virus from asymptomatic patients appears to be very rare:

      It still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.”

      Now I’m confused. Is the WHO a source of scientific expertise or is it a bunch of incompetent hacks in the thrall of China? I think if you are going to claim the latter then there is some obligation not to rely on them as a source.

      I’m not saying Dr. Van Kerkhove is wrong, just that some consistency would be in order here. That may be asking a lot from Rockwell.

  10. westernsloper

    Believe the scientists! Just not these scientists, right?

    What’s this? Cloth masks offer no protection for you or those around you? That is not what NPR just told me. Everyone who does not think a mask will stop the spread is an idiot was what I got from Scott Simon and his guest.

    • Festus' Mustache

      This covid thing is turning out to be worse than Disco.

      • TARDIS

        At least with Disco, girls wiggled their butts and people got laid by multiple partners.

      • Festus' Mustache

        There were satin pants and halter tops. Not all bad.

      • Fribblemeister

        I’m all for a good analogy but worse than disco? Get hold of yourself, man.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Meanwhile, back at the Guardian

    Camouflaged federal agents have descended on Portland. Trump’s DHS is out of control

    ——-

    DHS, even in the pre-Trump era, has been an enormous waste of taxpayer resources, full of massive government waste and abuse, and a civil liberties disaster to boot. Back in 2015, I called for it to be abolished in the pages of the Guardian. Under Trump it has reached new levels of depravity. Its disturbing anti-immigration actions have shown agents seemingly going out of their way to be as cruel as possible to those they apprehend.

    Anyone only has to read the news from the past few weeks to witness DHS’s corruption and creeping authoritarianism: in one story, government auditors have found that the CBP spent money meant for food and medical supplies for detained migrants on ATVs and dirt bikes for themselves. In another, DHS deployed Predator drones, helicopters, and airplanes to spy on Black Lives Matter protesters in 15 American cities.

    With their actions in Portland, their authoritarianism is no longer creeping – the DHS and CBP are acting as full-on secret police. If there are not steep consequences for these disturbing actions, there will be no limits on where this will lead.

    The government should be a force for good, but Trump ruins everything.

    Depraved Orange Man is depraved.

    • Festus' Mustache

      They egg the “peaceful protesters” on. What is their end-game?

    • Nephilium

      So… we can shutter the DHS and roll back the CBP to only the borders and points of entry?

    • Fribblemeister

      The videos of these unmarked government Gestapo agents kidnapping peacefully protesting citizens should be very disturbing to all libertarians. The CBP statement is downright Big Brother-esque:

      “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its components will continue to work tirelessly to reestablish law and order. The Federal Protective Service (FPS) is the lead government agency that CBP personnel are supporting. CBP personnel have been deployed to Portland in direct support of the Presidential Executive Order and the newly established DHS Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT). CBP law enforcement personnel have been trained and cross designated under FPS legal authority 40 U.S.C. § 1315.”

      Why are customs and border patrol agents even in Portland? DHS Under Secrtary John Cuccinelli says that they are going to take the Portland tactics nationwide:

      https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dhs-under-boss-were-taking-this-national

      As far as Festus’ question regarding the Trump administration’s endgame, clearly they believe it will divert attention from the continuing clusterfuck that is their Covid-19 response and the crashing economy. I think that they want to provoke a response that will demand a tit-for-tat response from them in some kind of misguided belief that it will bolster the President’s sagging political fortunes.

      My brother-in-law claims to be a conservative and supports this nonsense fully. It’s both astonishing and sad.

      • Viking1865

        I don’t like cops wearing camo very much at all, but they have POLICE on their uniforms in yellow letters. I’ve never been a huge fan of unmarked copcars either, but unmarked cars are not some Gestapo tactic never seen before in America.

        https://twitter.com/ReallyAmerican1/status/1283967614889283591

        As with so much of ZOMG TRUMP IS DOING ___________, Trump is just doing the exact same thing Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush did but somehow since Trump is a fat ugly buffoon its now THE WORST THING EVER.

        Oh, and I’m done with “peaceful protesters” covering everyone from a candlelight vigil to an active riot.

      • Fribblemeister

        Viking1865: you’re okay with people with POLICE on their uniforms abducting lawfully-assembled peaceful protesters because it was done under Obama, Bush, Clinton and Bush? Am I reading you right? And was the man in the video you posted actively rioting?

      • Viking1865

        I used plain English. I can quote it for you again, if you would like. My words are right there, in black and white. They mean exactly what they mean.

        I don’t like cops wearing camo very much at all, but they have POLICE on their uniforms in yellow letters.

        I’ve never been a huge fan of unmarked copcars either, but unmarked cars are not some Gestapo tactic never seen before in America.

        As with so much of ZOMG TRUMP IS DOING ___________, Trump is just doing the exact same thing Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush did but somehow since Trump is a fat ugly buffoon its now THE WORST THING EVER.

        Your dishonest approach to discussion is not something that you would do to me in person, I don’t think. I think you’re indulging in one of the worst traits of Internet debate: refusing to respond to what was actually said, instead responding to what you imagine I said or to some interpretation of my motivations.

      • Fribblemeister

        That is why I asked you if I was reading you correctly. I apologize for the misinterpretation.

        Having said that, the fact that you brought other administrations into a discussion about what’s happening in Portland is also one of the worst traits of Internet debate, which is bringing irrelevancies to the discussion at hand.

    • Fribblemeister

      From the DHS website:

      “The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it. ”

      So far, those 47 days of anarchic hell have resulted in 0 deaths and 5 injuries.

    • Fribblemeister

      From the Libertarian Party:

      “Sending unmarked cars with federal police decked out in camo into Portland due to protests/riots happening over unaccountable police activity isn’t how you quell them. It just encourages more disquiet.

      Implement real reforms.

      End qualified immunity”

  12. Gender Traitor

    proof that gingers don’t actually have souls

    ::pouts:: #GingerSoulsMatter, dammit.

    • Festus' Mustache

      I like you plenty, Soul-less Ginger! My stache was ruddy before it turned gray.

    • Drake

      That’s at least a well armed infantry company.

      • Animal

        Send Swalwell down there to tell ’em we have nukes.

  13. Cy

    Any ideas for a Libertarian solution to Portland?

    • Old Man With Candy

      Let Portland worry about it. If they ask for help and it’s something that makes sense, voluntarily help them.

      • Festus' Mustache

        Let them sort it out themselves. Any action coming from on high will just make that swarm of wasps angrier. Just do like Seattle and wait until the assholes start marching down the Mayor’s street, busting out windows and the like. You can’t reason with insane people who have an agenda.

      • Ted S.

        Note that this includes no government funds for dealing with the aftermath.

      • Festus' Mustache

        ^this too.

      • Fourscore

        We have seen how the farm belt/rust belt has changed 2-3 times over the last 100 years or so. Portlandia will suffer the same as productive people find that it is no longer productive. The population remnants will be the old, the younger no-producers.

        “Yeah, there used to be a bar and a restaurant, etc, etc on the corner here but they closed when the factory/high tech people making stuff that people wanted left. The people moved to the ‘burbs or left town ’cause of the taxes. All that’s left is a few homeless druggies, no one comes into Portland any more”

        The story of every small town and inner city across America. Portland is not exempt from the laws of society.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Portland was interesting the two times I was there for the Rose Festival with my ship. Back in 2011/2012 you’d see a few nuts hanging around but it wasn’t all out crazy. Great food, Powells books, indie theaters, etc.

        As far as I can recall though – Rose Festival was what really brought in the out of towners and older folks. (We gave people rides up the Columbia river from a bunch of smaller commercial piers on our Frigate (they didn’t get to come in off the weatherdecks or flight deck though). So you’d have a lot of farming/ranching folks – and best I can tell, they were the ones buying drinks all weekend for the military folks – wouldn’t expect it to be the locals really.

      • hayeksplosives

        Let’s put Kyle Maclaughlin, Fred Armisen, and Carrie Brownstein in charge of Portland for reelz.

        Could be an improvement and should certainly be funnier.

      • sloopyinca

        The federal government needs to step in and offer to protect the private property, self-defense, and free speech rights of the people who request it.
        The local and state government are allowing those rights to be trampled by a mob whose politics they agree with, but those rights still exist and must be protected.
        It would be easy to sit back and say “you get what you deserve”, but there are a lot of people there who aren’t on board with the commie cosplayers. And they’re entitled to their rights. They shouldn’t be considered collateral damage just so we can sit back and watch a mostly retarded city fall into chaos.

      • sloopyinca

        When a minority of blacks sought to have their rights respected in the Jim Crow south, the National Guard were there for them. I don’t see a difference in that and property owners in Portland who are having their property “appropriated” by collectivist thieves.
        Send in the guard and march these fuckers out of the private property of others and stop them from disturbing the safe travel of those on public roadways. It’s time to enforce the constitutional rights of the innocent.

      • Spartacus

        This time I agree with you. The 14th amendment makes the federal government guarantor of basic rights, and if states will not uphold them, the feds have a duty to step in.

      • sloopyinca

        This time I agree with you.

        I don’t know whether to be happy or offended. ?

      • Spartacus

        It just means that you’re right, for once. ??

      • Overt

        Sloopy, I could be wrong, but I believe the National Guard were sent in to enforce the orders of a Federal Judge. If these people in Portland want the federal government to step in, they need to sue the state in federal court.

        Even in the case of Jim Crowe laws, the NG was going into a huge swath of America that was essentially in non compliance. Here we are talking about a city. The vast majority of people within the city of portland and the state of oregon are not experiencing anything here close to the pervasiveness of Jim Crowe. If we cannot let Portland stand or fall on its own in this case, then why have Cities or States in the first place?

      • sloopyinca

        People have sued the city government in Seattle, which is in the same circuit. Any court order could be equally applied in the entire Ninth Circuit.

        And I don’t think using the NG to protect rights only exists if it’s a political body in a large geographical area that’s denying rights. IIRC, the NG was sent in by Eisenhower specifically to protect students in a single high school in Little Rock, AR (Executive Order 10730). No court order authorizing use of troops was necessary.

      • R C Dean

        “an individual can’t just decide to destroy a public work (SLD about not having public art works) because they don’t like it”

        Doesn’t seem to work that way any more.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Eisenhower nationalized the Guard (because the gov was using it to keep the students put) and sent active duty troops (101st Airborne battlegroup) in.

      • sloopyinca

        If we cannot let Portland stand or fall on its own in this case, then why have Cities or States in the first place?

        You can still have different political divisions (States) with different policies but maintain a supreme political body (Federal Gov’t) that exists to protect individual rights within the various smaller political divisions.

        Letting states do whatever they want IRT the fundamental constitutional rights we’re all guaranteed under the constitutions is a recipe for disaster to those people who believe in self-defense, feee speech, freedom of religion, private property rights, or due process.

      • sloopyinca

        Letting cities “stand or fall on their own” results in mob rule and the rights of the minority to simply disappear.

      • Overt

        I can understand this if the government is doing the looting. But they aren’t. This is happening between private individuals and, while the government is standing by, they are not actively doing this.

        I get your frustration, and I also disagree with things that the protestors are doing.

        But the logic you are using now would also easily apply to downtown Chicago.

        I do not want my president to have the moral legitimacy or the power to send in troops without the orders of a federal judge. Surely you see what someone like Barack MurderDrone Obama would do if that sort of thing were legitimized in the mainstream, right?

    • Gender Traitor

      Would it be a violation of the NAP to actively root for the Cascadia subduction zone to get on with it already? Maybe encourage some strategically-located fracking just for grins?

      • UnCivilServant

        Is that what STEVE means by ‘Free Cascadia’?

      • Festus' Mustache

        STEVE SMITH MAKE BIG CRACK! NOT NEED PUNY SUBDUCTION ZONE!

      • Gender Traitor

        Free it from the left coast!

        Bonus: It may also be hooked up with the northern San Andreas fault. Twofer!

    • TARDIS

      No, that would require the rioters to participate in thoughtful reasoning. You can’t use logic on rabid dogs.

    • leon

      I don’t even know what’s going on in Portland. If this is what gets rid of DHS, all the better.

  14. Old Man With Candy

    With their actions in Portland, their authoritarianism is no longer creeping – the DHS and CBP are acting as full-on secret police.

    Well, looks like most of us were 20 years ahead on that realization.

    • EvilSheldon

      Ahh, to see the future but never to be believed…

    • EvilSheldon

      Ahh, to see the future but never to be believed…

      • Ted S.

        The squirrels have always seen the future.

    • Festus' Mustache

      Well, I kinda wish that I were 20 years old and destitute again. Happy, but poor…

  15. Sean

    *watching morning news*

    Dear media,

    They are not protestors. They are fucking criminals.

    Fuck off and die.

    -Sean

    • Festus' Mustache

      Five thumbs up!

    • hayeksplosives

      My favorite was how the red paint splasher in New York was “vandalizing” the BLM “mural.”

      • Sean

        And the armed guards now assigned to protect it…

      • Gender Traitor

        You say “vandalize,” I say “embellish.”

      • Nephilium

        The BLM murals up in Cleveland keep getting vandalized by a black guy who keeps painting on things like: “Stop killing each other.”; “Black Lives Matter is a Marxist Organization.”; “Get a job and save money.”

        I’d like to buy that guy a beer.

      • Chafed

        Let’s give him a medal.

      • The Hyperbole

        Wasn’t the “mural” a public art work commissioned by the city. One may not like it or think it’s “art” but defending it’s destruction puts one in the same camp as those that are tearing down statues.

      • Spartacus

        That seems a bit…hyperbolic.
        I haven’t been keeping up with this, but wasn’t the “mural” painted on the street? Were they just planning to keep the street closed forever so it doesn’t get defaced by tire tracks, etc.? If so, wouldn’t a permanent street closure be a use change requiring public hearings and notices?

        On the other hand, if the plan was never for it to be permanent, was it approved for a certain period of time? How do you convert a main road to a hands-off artwork for any period without a notice and comment interval? And if it’s not for any certain period of time, then it’s just a piece of roadway with paint on it. One paint is as good as another.

      • The Hyperbole

        Temporary or permanent (they could open the road and occasionally repaint like crosswalks and turn arrows and what not) either way an individual can’t just decide to destroy a public work (SLD about not having public art works) because they don’t like it or because it’s not going to last forever anyways. I’m sure those statues require periodic maintenance and aren’t going to last forever either.

  16. Rufus the Monocled

    Fuck you Francois Legault and Dr. Mask Horacio Arruda. May you both rot in hell.

    • mrfamous

      Nobody except catchers should be wearing masks during physical activity. The pushback on this stuff needed to be swift and severe early on before the hive mind took control.

      • UnCivilServant

        Fencers too. Taking a saber to the eye is not fun.

      • sloopyinca

        Hockey goalies hardest hit (literally).

    • invisible finger

      Just two more deaths due to wuflu

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Any ideas for a Libertarian solution to Portland?

    Koreans.

    On roofs.

    • Festus' Mustache

      I am going to hell for laughing at that.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Right beside ya, buddy

    • TARDIS

      AC-130. Expend all ordinance. Land. Reload/refuel. Repeat as necessary.

      • mindyourbusiness

        Prefer a couple of A10s, myself.

    • Sean

      The judges will also accept belt-fed or crew served answers.

    • l0b0t

      DIVARTY… The answer is (almost always) DIVARTY. A few salvos from a 155 Battery throwing a mix of HE and white phosphorus, fused for air-burst should soften them up enough for infantry to sweep through.

      • LCDR_Fish

        DIVARTY was disbanded 20 years ago. Composite BDEs mean organic ARTY BNs.

      • l0b0t

        Sigh… I’m old. Being ADA, our barracks were up on DIVARTY Hill at Ft. Ord. They had a dynamite walk-up burger shack called The Muzzle Break where, if you missed chow or were particularly drunk and peckish, they would provide you with a sack full of burgers and fries upon the presentation of your meal card. I miss those late night burgers.

  18. Rufus the Monocled

    I’ve been circulating that CIDRAP article to everyone for months now.

    Looks like no one listened.

    It’s crazy.

    Read this:

    https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1435/rr-40

    And this:

    https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-study-looking-at-mandatory-face-masks-and-number-of-covid-19-infections-in-new-york-wuhan-and-italy/

    And this (if you can read French. It’s forceful in its conclusion masks suck):

    https://fr.sott.net/article/35687-La-science-est-concluante-les-masques-n-empechent-PAS-la-transmission-des-virus#

  19. The Late P Brooks

    My anguish is realer than your anguish

    Now, you may wonder: Doesn’t this world-weary presumption that you know how arguments will go lead to paranoid readings and meta-debates that seem totally batshit to onlookers who aren’t internet-poisoned? Yup! And that crosses over into real-life engagements too, since at this point it would be foolish to insist that online patterns aren’t having offline effects. Take “All Lives Matter.” Most people by now understand how the phrase works to undermine social justice protests, but for a long time, it did exactly what it was meant to: It made people who knew what it was actually saying seem paranoid and crazy for objecting to an anodyne statement that seemed bighearted and self-evident. “Why would you refuse to debate someone who’s simply saying that all lives matter?” is the kind of question an Enlightenment subject longing for a robust exchange of ideas might ask. Well, the reason is that most of us have learned, through bitter experience in the mirror-halls of the internet, that it would be a waste of time. It probably wouldn’t be a true exchange. We’ve tried. We’ve watched others try. And we know by now what “All Lives Matter” signals, and that what it signals is orthogonal to what it says. Your fluency in this garbage means you take shortcuts: Maybe, if you’ve been online a lot, you don’t even bother to refute the text anymore. You leap to the subtext—which is that black people don’t deserve public advocacy or concern despite being disproportionately abused and killed by police. So maybe you don’t argue. Maybe you just call that position racist and call it a day.

    To outsiders, that leap will look absolutely nuts. But that’s the point of a certain kind of troll-poisoned political messaging: to make the other side look paranoid and unhinged. It’s certainly what all the coded Nazi signals are for—the 14 words, the numbers, the OK hand sign that both is and isn’t a white power sign, the boogaloo junk. They’re all ways to divorce surface meaning from intentional subtext. And they work. Try explaining any of these to someone who isn’t online; convince them that Hawaiian shirts are the costume of choice for members of an extremist movement hoping to start a second civil war. Hawaiian shirts!

    More from the Peewee Herman School of Rhetoric. I know you are, but what am I?

    I just want an honest debate; one in which you will agree that I am right and you are wrong.

    • Ted S.

      “Social justice” is both anti-social and unjust.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “Welcome to Cawfee Tawk. I’m yer host, Linda Richman…”

      • Festus' Mustache

        snert

    • Festus' Mustache

      I read the whole thing and lost two IQ points. Who wants cake?

    • EvilSheldon

      What part of, “I don’t give a fuck about your stupid opinions,” is this dweeb not getting?

    • B.P.

      The crazy things I say seem crazy to people who aren’t deeply familiar with my twisted brand of logic!

    • Brawndo

      “you’re making us make ourselves look ridiculous. Not fair!”

  20. The Late P Brooks

    Yes, this dynamic is very bad for discourse. Yes, it inhibits intellectual exchange. Yes, it makes productive dissensus almost impossible. But that isn’t because of “cancel culture” or “illiberalism.” It’s because in this discourse environment, good-faith engagement is actually maladaptive. If you tried to carefully explain to every single person who posts All Lives Matter on the internet why they shouldn’t and how they might not know that it sounds racist, you’ll lose your mind. Many of them know what they’re saying and are doing so on purpose. The ones who do it innocently are rare. You could engage in good faith in hopes of finding the latter, but instead, people do something pretty rational given the context (and the volume of stuff they have to sort through): They take shortcuts. Filter. Classify. All Lives Matter = racist. Deadnaming someone = transphobe. If these exchanges feel abrupt and supercharged, it’s because a lot of people are at the end of their rope anyway—if you’d spent years fielding the same devil’s advocate arguments about the inferiority of your race or gender or sexuality, even a hint of one of those talking points might tempt you to shut the discussion down too.

    “You can’t fool me, you Nazi.”

    • Festus' Mustache

      Key words at the end “Shut the discussion down”. They don’t want to engage, they want you to shut up and listen.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        ‘”Shut up,” he explained.’

      • Grumbletarian

        The same people who “want to start a conversation” always seem to be the same people who want to “shut the discussion down”.

      • Gender Traitor

        What we need is common sense conversation control!

      • Chafed

        Don’t give them ideas.

      • Nephilium

        You haven’t seen the rumblings about bringing back the “Fairness Doctrine”?

      • Dry_Gin_Wet_Farts

        No one needs a bullet proof arguement.

      • Fatty Bolger

        Yes, any time I see that “start a conversation” BS, I assume a lecture is coming.

      • sloopyinca

        But I’ve been told that if we shut up, then we’re not actively antiracist. So just shutting up isn’t good enough either. Unless we’re shouting “Black Lives Matter!!!” at the top of our lungs, we’re no better than the Klan from a century ago.

    • hayeksplosives

      “ The ones who do it innocently are rare.”

      Oh, so they cracked the code and can read minds and motivations now?

      • l0b0t

        Sources, familiar with the President’s thinking on the matter (who have requested anonymity as they are not authorized to speak on the record)

      • Viking1865

        Duh, why do you think they went to college?

        I keep telling people this: your under 40 American leftist has never actually read or seen anything that challenged leftism. I was in a freshman comp class where we read various pieces and had to write a response to them. One of those was Lifeboat Ethics, was is a very typical little Malthusian nonsense wherein Earth is exactly like a crowded lifeboat. Obviously, the premise is ludicrous on it’s face, and I argued as such. Professor wanted me to rewrite my essay, because the assignment was not to refute the premise.

        Another professor I had that year had a PhD in International Relations from Georgetown, but did not know what the Monroe Doctrine was. Somehow I got a B in that class despite getting an A on every assignment, never missing class, and engaging in every discussion, vigorously. Of course, the idiotic guy next to me who missed half the classes, flunked a test, and rarely spoke up in class got the same B by slobbering all over Dr. Moron’s stupidity. So many examples, but my personal favorite was when she was explaining her belief that any Korean Unification would take decades, and might never be successful. I guess she didn’t notice how quick the Germans did it.

        Then I had the law class where the professor spent 10 minutes in the first day ranting about Atlas Shrugged. Not sure why he got on that kick, but he did. It became quite obvious he’d never actually read the book. Then I had an anthropology class with a guy who specialized in the Incans. I asked him about the practice of child sacrifice at one point that semester, and he flatly denied that it happened, that it was racist and colonialist propaganda. Philosophy class where the professor just talked about how bad the Republicans were, and made every single philosophical piece we read into a comic book analogy.

        I was in college for two semesters. I took some classes at a community college, one of the professors there was a total leftist, but he actually had worked in the LBJ administration so he had lots of insight on government and politics actually worked.

      • Grosspatzer

        Philosophy class where the professor just talked about how bad the Republicans were, and made every single philosophical piece we read into a comic book analogy.

        That is oddly familiar. Rutgers, 1972, Philosophy 201 (Intro to Logic). Prof managed to work Spider-Man into every syllogism.

      • LCDR_Fish

        Korean unification could take decades.

        E and W Germany were vastly closer together in terms of development. 80% of N Korea is stuck in the 50s or worse, and the infrastructure requirements alone to bring them up to a parallel with the ROK would take probably > trillion $.

      • I'm Here To Help

        The residents of the old West Germany are still paying a tax to help out the old East Germany (the Solidaritätszuschlag, or “solidarity tax). I wouldn’t say that they were that quick about it if they are still pumping money over to the east 30+ years after unification…

      • Brawndo

        Had a poli sci class where the professor had never heard of Bastiat.

        Had a business course where the professor would occasionally mention specific regulations that were making it hard to conduct business. During a group project, the entire group spent half the time complaining about how he was being such a die hard Republican.

      • Viking1865

        One of my favorite anecdotes is George McGovern after leaving politics, entering the business world.

        McGovern had made several real estate investments in the D.C. area and became interested in hotel operations.[257] In 1988, using the money he had earned from his speeches, the McGoverns bought, renovated, and began running a 150-room inn in Stratford, Connecticut, with the goal of providing a hotel, restaurant, and public conference facility.[257][270] It went into bankruptcy in 1990 and closed the following year.[271] In 1992 McGovern’s published reflections on the experience appeared in Wall Street Journal and the Nation’s Restaurant News.[270][272] He attributed part of the failure to the early 1990s recession, but also part to the cost of dealing with federal, state, and local regulations that were passed with good intentions but made life difficult for small businesses, and to the cost of dealing with frivolous lawsuits.[270] McGovern wrote, “I … wish that during the years I was in public office I had had this firsthand experience about the difficulties business people face every day. That knowledge would have made me a better U.S. senator and a more understanding presidential contender.”[270] His statement would still be resonating with American conservatives two decades later.[273]

        These are the people that rule you. Idiots, who actually believe that the only people negatively affected by regulation are the villains from Captain Planet.

    • leon

      You don’t have the strength to engage in good faith discussion, that’s fine. But you also say that you can’t just walk on by. If a complete stranger is wrong, I’ll let them be wrong.

    • Nephilium

      Many of them know what they’re saying and are doing so on purpose. The ones who do it innocently are rare.

      All of the people who say things I disagree with are evil and wrong.

    • EvilSheldon

      I bet this dude considers himself to have a lot of empathy and compassion…

  21. Rufus the Monocled

    I think I made a mistake burying more than one link above and see ‘awaiting moderation’ so I’ll just repost and split them here. As noted above, I’ve been stating that CIDRAP article for months now. The strange part about all this is actual experts who are telling a different story from the official line seem to have been frozen out.

    This article in French is pretty forceful about how masks suck.

    https://fr.sott.net/article/35687-La-science-est-concluante-les-masques-n-empechent-PAS-la-transmission-des-virus#

      • westernsloper

        (2) Inappropriate use of face mask: people must not touch their masks, must change their single-use masks frequently or wash them regularly, dispose them correctly and adopt other management measures, otherwise their risks and those of others may increase.[3,4]

        This is my latest constant bitch. The initial guidance was to never touch your face and wash your hands often. Mask use here and I assume most places is, you wear the thing around your neck and pull it up and down about two hundred times a day touching your face each time. So which is it? Should I not touch my face or should I put my mask on when I enter a building? Ya, ya, you should put on your mask in the morning and not touch it until you get home. That is impractical for most people especially if you spend much of your day working outdoors or do strenuous activity. Fuck exerting yourself physically and wearing a mask. You will kill yourself.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Impractical? it’s downright retardedly impossible and criminal.

        And they want us to wear it for two years here!

        Something’s gotta give to put an end to this madness fast.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    The link in question

    “We are basically looking at two main characteristics for the masks. The first was the type of fabric that we used and the second was the construction of the mask,” Sid Verma, an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University who was part of the study, told “Good Morning America.”

    Researchers used a mannequin that simulated coughs and sneezes by spraying particles into the air from its mouth. The scientists said particles traveled eight feet from the mannequin’s mouth when it had no face covering.

    SCIENCEY!

    • Festus' Mustache

      *head goes through desk, keeps travelling directly up my ass*

    • Chafed

      Beautiful

  23. Raven Nation

    John Lewis was a bad ass HERO in the 1960s.

    He’s a poster child for how politics wrecks people.

    • UnCivilServant

      He burned those laurels long ago.

      • ruodberht

        Early though the laurel grows, it withers quicker than the rose

    • Drake

      “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”

      ― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time

      Lewis was the living embodiment of that truth.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    From Rufus’ precautionary link:

    <em.(6) While impeding person-to-person transmission is key to limiting the outbreak, so far little importance has been given to the events taking place after a transmission has happened, when innate immunity plays a crucial role. The main purpose of the innate immune response is to immediately prevent the spread and movement of foreign pathogens throughout the body.[6] The innate immunity’s efficacy is highly dependent on the viral load. If face masks determine a humid habitat where the SARS-CoV-2 can remain active due to the water vapour continuously provided by breathing and captured by the mask fabric, they determine an increase in viral load and therefore they can cause a defeat of the innate immunity and an increase in infections. This phenomenon may also interact with and enhance previous points.

    In conclusion, as opposed to Greenhalgh et al., we believe that the context of the current covid-19 pandemic is very different from that of the “parachutes for jumping out of aeroplanes”,[7] in which the dynamics of harm and prevention are easy to define and even to quantify without the need of research studies. It is necessary to quantify the complex interactions that may well be operating between positive and negative effects of wearing surgical masks at population level. It is not time to act without evidence.

    Revoke this man’s SCIENCE license!

  25. leon

    Re Portland guy: maybe he wasn’t wearing a mask. Trump is just trying to get people safe.

    Fuck off. You have no problem with the authority, just that it’s being used against you.

    • CPRM

      It cemented Obama as the God King, that’s something I guess.

    • CPRM

      Also, do these people know ‘Trader Joe’s’ is the French department of a German company? So Joe itself is already ‘appropriated’?

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, so they cracked the code and can read minds and motivations now?

    Very good. You win a cookie.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Ya, ya, you should put on your mask in the morning and not touch it until you get home.

    Sure. You really need that mask when you’re outside, by yourself, in the blazing sunshine. And while you’re driving around in your car, by yourself. Or when you’re in an otherwise unoccupied indoor space, running a two minute errand, like dropping an envelope into a slot.

    • Sean

      Nope. Nope. Nope.

    • Tejicano

      That might work during Ramadan if you’re a follower of Islam. The rest of us are going to eat lunch and maybe have a coffee or eight.

    • UnCivilServant

      I’m sorry, I need to breathe.

    • UnCivilServant

      Put everyone running Minne in the asylum.

    • CPRM

      Masks, especially white hoods, are the only way to stop this epidemic.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    I wonder how much catcher’s masks cost. I might have to look.

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Wut?

    Are you somehow unaware of the epidemic of racially motivated lynchings in Minneapolis? They’re dying by the thousands, up there.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    Another idea for mask signage:

    “Germ Incubator”

    • CPRM

      Is this the opening cutscene of a video game? I’m confused.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’ve seen worse.

    • CPRM

      Cool link brah.

      • leon

        They stole it via censorship

      • Sean

        [Redacted]

      • Crusty Juggler
      • Q Continuum

        As if this is surprising in the least. All is going as I predicted. Instead of meaningful work on police reform, shitheads riot, destroy property and assault people. They then ratchet up the crazy by demanding the abolition of police entirely.

        OF COURSE it was going to have the opposite effect and make cops even more authoritarian. The normies and Karens of the world will cheer it on.

      • Crusty Juggler

        Help help!

  31. Q Continuum

    What do prostitutes do on their day off?

    Spend their fucking money.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      1st Scientist: How do you make a hormone?

      2nd Scientist: I don’t know, how do you make a hormone?

      1st Scientist: Don’t pay her.

      • Q Continuum

        What’s the difference between a choking fetish and necrophilia?

        About 2 minutes.

  32. Q Continuum

    “Tempe man accused of filming sex acts with infant”

    Even with inflated prices, 9 mm cartridges are still only about $0.30. One to the back of the head and we’re done.

    • CPRM

      The Aristocrats!

      • Cy

        It’s not his fault he’s a Democrat, his professors made him be that way.

    • TARDIS

      I would go with the modern version of the Captain Fury method. 12 gauge to the junk, and let him bleed out. He should have time to regret his choices.

      • Mojeaux

        MY Captain Fury? *squeeeeeee*

      • TARDIS

        ??

  33. Scruffy Nerfherder

    So Governor Coonman is sending out inspectors and police to local businesses to enforce the mask rule under threat of fines and business license revocation.

    I’m putting up a sign on Monday with the infamous photo of him and text that says “Governor Blackface loves hanging with people in masks so much, he insists you wear one too.”

    • sloopyinca

      You can not issue an EO with the force of a criminal law. I hope every person charged challenged the validity of the order. It’s time we find out if “rule of law” exists or not. If it does…good. If it doesn’t…time to don the Hawaiian shirts.

    • Nephilium

      The Ohio Liquor Board is having WebEx hearings to determine what’s going to happen to 12 liquor license holders.

      One of them was cited for:

      [the employee] recklessly caused inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm to another by creating a condition that presents a risk of illness, by an or acts that served no lawful and reasonable purpose of the permit holder in and upon the permit premises.

      Those. Monsters.

      • sloopyinca

        or acts that served no lawful and reasonable purpose of the permit holder in and upon the permit premises.

        Was he making liquor available for purchase to those who are old enough to legally buy liquor? Then his actions served a lawful and reasonable purpose, you fucking jackboot piece of shit.

      • Nephilium

        The annoyance part is what stood out to me. I’m honestly surprised that few got cited. If I had to hazard a guess, quite a few others are making donations to the policeman’s pension fund to avoid citations.

        /has been to multiple bars with staff not wearing masks.

      • Gender Traitor

        Only one near Dayton?? (Medway) C’mon, Miami Valley! #Resist and represent!

      • Grosspatzer

        This sucks. The rule of law is dead because the legislative branch no longer legislates, and has no interest in reclaiming that responsibility. That vacuum is now filled by executives and regulatory bodies empowered to create arbitrary rules. If the legislative bodies were actually doing their jobs, they’d be the ones making (or not) laws about this. But they’d then be on the record, and be responsible for the results, which doesn’t play well in elections.

      • Nephilium

        Or the governor vetoes the bill. There’s still a chance the veto gets overturned.

      • Grosspatzer

        There’s that. Of course, the judiciary could weigh in on the constitutionality of such things as well, but who am I kidding?

  34. leon

    https://youtu.be/GrVHwvOkbYE

    Styxenhammer on portland. Right now id say let portland deal with their own bulshit, but… im very sympathetic to people asking for releif from the Feds from being terrorized and the state doing nothing about it.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      There are good people there who are getting screwed because the local authorities are coddling a vocal and violent small minority. Then again, I don’t like to see the feds flexing their law enforcement muscles locally. I’m just glad I don’t live there.

    • CPRM

      Meh.

    • Drake

      That’s the second guy who waved a knife at a cop in about a week. Neither ended well.

      • Crusty Juggler

        It was a box cutter. What is the worst damage you could do with one of those things?

      • leon

        -1 Tower

      • sloopyinca

        You left out the /sarc tag.

      • Viking1865

        I’m flying for the first time since 1998 in about a month. I am not looking forward to it.

      • sloopyinca

        I’ve flown four times in the last two weeks. It’s really not awful. Just be sure you’re holding a bottle to drink from or something to eat and you can leave your mask down.

        Fortunately, we’ve reached a point when the majority of people flying are doing so for business. And most of them aren’t gonna flip the fuck out at others because they’re busy getting work done themselves.

      • Viking1865

        Oh I was more talking about the security theater, the liquids bullshit, whatever else they’ve come up with. Seriously, I have not gotten on a plane since before 9/11. I was 9 years old, we flew to Vegas.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        *suddenly feels old*

      • sloopyinca

        Security is easier than any time since 9/11. Fewer travelers, a full complement of TSA agents that don’t want to be near anybody.

        It’s the best it’s been in 19 years.

        The food choices in the airports are limited though. So that’s a downer.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Your LBJ-alumnus prof must have been old.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Food pre 9/11 was limited also. The idea, where it existed, was to do it before walking through the short x ray lines and to your gate. 9/11 and later airlines cutting included in flight meals from coach and downgrade of remaining food service helped airside food grow.

      • EvilSheldon

        Kill someone, or cripple them. Lots of stitches. It doesn’t take much edge length at all, to badly fuck someone up.

      • Tejicano

        Knowing how to deploy a blade is 90% of it. What kind of blade is nowhere nearly as important.

        The first point is to keep it out of view before using it. Once you’ve gotten close you can do a lot of damage – even with a box cutter.

    • sloopyinca

      So she told him to drop the knife with a razor blade edge on it and he kept going toward her?
      The law is pretty clearly in her favor.

      And yes, she’s quite attractive.

    • EvilSheldon

      So this is one of the rare defensive shootings by a cop who’s also a pretty serious competitive shooter. I’ll definitely be watching how this plays out.

      Also, she is (or was) hanging out with Taran Butler. Considering Taran’s recent problems, I don’t know if this is gonna be a plus or a minus…

      • Drake

        I noticed her shots were slower and more deliberate than the usual cop mag-dump.

      • EvilSheldon

        That could also be an LAPD thing. They train their officers to shoot at a very deliberate half-second pace. Gives the brain some time to catch up and say, “Oh hey, he’s dropped his gun, let’s stop shooting now.”

  35. The Late P Brooks

    He could save us, but he won’t

    President Trump says he will not issue a national mandate requiring Americans to wear masks in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

    “I want people to have a certain freedom and I don’t believe in that, no,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace that will air in full on “Fox News Sunday.”

    Trump also seemed to express skepticism about the efficacy of masks, noting that public health officials initially said that facial coverings were not necessary for healthy individuals, before later adding that he is a “believer in masks.”

    “I don’t agree with the statement that if everyone wore a mask, everything disappears,” Trump said, referring to Wallace’s mention of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying that the country could get the virus under control in four to six weeks if everyone wore a mask.

    President Cartoon Villain hates SCIENCE, and he wants you to die.

    • CPRM

      Least authoritarian Nazi EVAR!

    • Drake

      It’s right there in the Constitution, he can just order citizens to do stuff.

    • sloopyinca

      I see an opportunity for the House to craft legislation that compels an action they appear to support. I wonder why they’re ignoring their legislative duty and instead are decrying Trump not overstepping his authority.

      Gee, you’d almost think they were politically motivated in their inaction.

  36. Crusty Juggler

    Minneapolis repeals anti-topless ordinance after police film nude sunbathers

    Minneapolis has repealed an anti-topless ordinance after police used drones to film nude sunbathers, claiming they were investigating reports about drinking and drugs, according to reports.

    Officers would speak with beachgoers in an attempt to give warnings, but the repeated complaints led to more direct action. GVPD started a surveillance of the beach using drones to catch beachgoers in the act of nude sunbathing, often finding them covered up by the time police arrived to issue a ticket or citation.

    Mahlen justified the drone use, arguing it was “no different than a surveillance camera in a public place for a high-crime area.”

    Residents did not agree.

    “It does make you feel uncomfortable to just think like, oh, how often am I being watched? And what kind of authority is going on here?” said Paula Chesley, who was written up for topless sunbathing.

    I want privacy in public!

    • straffinrun

      My eyes are up here! *Points to the sky*

    • CPRM

      Privacy only matters in the places I want to be naked damnit!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re just assholes trying to create situations where they can claim victimhood.

    • straffinrun

      If you can monetize a body like that, what am I gonna complain about?

    • Animal

      Oh for crying out loud, Crusty, I just ate.

      I clicked through before realizing what that name was. Read before clicking, dammit, Animal, read before clicking.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      My inner Tourette’s almost caused me to click.

    • sloopyinca

      ::looks at photo::

      You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece! What’s your name, fat body?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Well if Sloopy can do it, then I….

        OHMYGODMYEYESITBURNSITBURNS

    • TARDIS

      I feel bad for her, kind of. She needs a mental health professional.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Sadly, she probably has at least one, of questionable competence and perspicacity.

      • sloopyinca

        Nah. She just needs another accountant to figure out what to do with all her money.

        She’s not crazy. She’s a shrewd entrepreneur who acts crazy to make money. She’s a fucking genius who took that body and that brain and monetized the fuck out of it.

        I’d dare say she’s the American Dream. (And I don’t say that just because she appears to be as large as Dusty Rhodes.)

      • TARDIS

        She’s a fucking genius who took that body and that brain and monetized the fuck out of it.

        Hmmm, I might have to agree with you. I forget how vile they are.

    • Ozymandias

      NO. FUCKING. WAY. I am clicking on that. Nuh-uh. Nope…
      ….
      (okay, how bad could it b-)
      GAH!!!! WHY!?? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I feel ya’ man.

        *resumes stabbing eyes with fork*

      • Tejicano

        Dude, you’re still too much of a Marine. It’s possible that you would line yourself up for a challenge that puts a 7.62X54 in your chest. It’s not always worth it.

    • Gender Traitor

      ::lights Tres signal::

    • R C Dean

      She could show off her bikini without actually wearing it, you know.

      • Gender Traitor

        But then she might not be wearing anything.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I find her personality far more offputting than her looks.

      • Old Man With Candy

        ^This. x1,000,000

      • EvilSheldon

        Her looks aren’t even that bad. I see uglier people every time I go to Wal-Mart.

        But I don’t think I’ve ever *heard* anyone uglier.

  37. Viking1865

    Just listened to the Short Circuit podcast. Cops were watching a “drug house”. Guy pulls up, talks to his friend through the car window, friend never approaches the car. Guy drives off. Cops follow. Cops pull him over for failing to signal. Tell him to get out. He leverages the center console, because he just had surgery and isn’t moving so good. They think gun, drag him out, pepper spray and tase him. Take him to hospital, try to get the hospital to Xray or CT him. He refuses, hospital refuses. Take him to jail. Cousin shows up with bond. They refuse to accept the bond for ten hours, enough time to drive him to a different jail and run him through some kind of body scanner. Because HE MIGHT HAVE SWALLOWED TEH DRUGSSSSS. Sues the cops, court says “QI bro”, but the appeals court actually sides with the victim. Now just a few years later we can see the SCOTUS deny cert.

    • kbolino

      For a court that’s so concerned about appearances and “legitimacy” they sure seem awfully unwilling to take on genuine exercises of their constitutional powers when relevant to the public interest instead of trying to do the other branches’ jobs for them.

    • Grosspatzer

      “Employee of the month”. LOL.

  38. Chipping Pioneer

    “Has everybody lost their fucking minds?”

    Presupposes that everybody had minds to begin with. Evidence suggests that most did not.

    • Tejicano

      Or if they happened to be in possession of said minds they clearly had never read nor maintained possession of the owner’s manual

  39. The Late P Brooks

    This catchy little tune just came on.

    Haven’t heard it in forever.

    Let yore hair down.

    • Grosspatzer

      Put the O back in country. The e would like a word.

  40. Ozymandias

    Great version of an absolute classic, OMWC!
    When I was playing trumpet in high school jazz band, I got introduced to it. We all rolled our eyes when our band director made us learn it. Once we “got it down,” however, we would randomly break out into it.
    That song just swings, man.

    • Mojeaux

      2 out of 3 trumpeters with their cheeks blown out. I woulda gotten my cheeks poked back in when I was learning clarinet. (Took it up in high school because the band teacher needed a clarinet and I could read music and already played one instrument well. So other than the basics, I was mostly self-taught.)

    • Old Man With Candy

      Bill Berry. ‘Nuff said.

    • Tejicano

      Increased umbrella sales stimulate spike in torrential rains

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Spike in violent crime follows rise in ventilator use. I can do these spurious relationships all day.

    • KSuellington

      “Government Shutdown of Businesses Precedes Violent Crime Surge”

    • Fatty Bolger

      Like Suthen says, gun grabbers lie. It’s a given.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Slander! Calumny!

    Brad Parscale, who was recently demoted as the campaign manager of President Trump, called the media a “criminal network” and “America’s biggest enemy” in a Friday tweet, drawing criticism from journalists on social media.

    “The media is a criminal network that has very few honest people,” Parscale tweeted to his more than 735,000 followers. “They have zero intention to tell the truth. I have seen so many live in fear of a negative story. I am happy I get to continue to fight with @realDonaldTrump against America’s biggest enemy, the media!”

    ——-

    The reaction to Parscale’s remarks about the media drew swift reaction from members of the Fourth Estate on social media.

    “We’re not enemies of the people, you are!”

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “America’s biggest enemy”

      Hmmm, it’s a bit hyperbolic but I’ll allow it.

  42. Tejicano

    This just hit me so maybe it’s not a proven concept just yet…

    Quite possibly a major subconscious (Hell, maybe even conscious) motivation for your average “mask Karen” is how having to wear a mask evens the playing field when it comes to facial attractiveness. Could it be that most of them know how ugly they are and are happy to be able to require those who are not similarly handicapped to cover up and hide their privilege?

    Discuss

    • UnCivilServant

      As per the infamous person above, their faces are nowhere near as ugly as their attitudes.

    • Old Man With Candy

      I just got back from Lowe’s. While I was in line, I ended up in a discussion with a guy (middle aged, black, portly in the used-to-play-football way) who opined, “The mask shit, you see these really fine looking women walkin’ around. But every one of ’em could be a butterface and you’d never know.”

      • Tejicano

        + 10,000,000 burkas

    • Drake

      Is the average Karen a butter-face with a hot body? That hasn’t been my experience.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It doesn’t hide the ugliness that comes out when they open their mouths though. Maybe they should ditch the masks and try ball gags.

      • Tejicano

        Porque no los dos?

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t know what that means.

      • Tejicano

        Hell, she obviously gave up on the body 15-20 years ago. Now she can try to even out the rest of the losing package.

    • grrizzly

      I have a response to Karen ready: if I had your looks I’d wear a face mask too.

      • Tejicano

        Luvin it!

  43. The Late P Brooks

    Could it be that most of them know how ugly they are and are happy to be able to require those who are not similarly handicapped to cover up and hide their privilege?

    Like anybody would be surprised to find a bitchface hiding behind that mask.

    • Tejicano

      So can we start greeting them with a hearty “Glad to see you wearing your mask!” ?